Nas
I don't get jealousy, I don't get how people hate each other - I never did.Collection: Jealousy
Every generation witnesses atrocities. People in power try to fulfill prophecy.Collection: Power
Man, me and Biggie were the biggest artists in New York. When he passed, I was so messed up. My attitude was messed up about him dying. There was an East-West thing back then, and I was in war mode.Collection: Attitude
Working with great people makes you great; you learn a lot and it also gives you the experience and confidence to move on with your own career.Collection: Experience
I just enjoy life now. I just enjoy every morning I get to wake up.Collection: Morning
With age comes common sense and wisdom.Collection: Wisdom
Anybody I'm dating, I don't want them to talk about my music. I don't talk about my music to them.Collection: Dating
Hip-hop is the streets. Hip-hop is a couple of elements that it comes from back in the days... that feel of music with urgency that speaks to you. It speaks to your livelihood and it's not compromised. It's blunt. It's raw, straight off the street - from the beat to the voice to the words.Collection: Music
Once you make it to your point of making it, you'll appreciate the struggle.
The flaws, the mistakes I make - that's the real me.
Every time I get in the studio, I feel like I wanna have some fun. My fun is not doing the easy work. My fun is doing what's me.
I want to have fun. It's a beautiful life. You learn, you win, you lose, but you get up.
You can't please everybody. You'd be crazy if you're trying to. So take some time out to do some things for yourself.
I don't want any title. I just say what I say, and hopefully somebody gets it, man. I'm not perfect, and I'm just here and trying to make a dollar, and being real at the same time, you know?
When you have a daughter, you want to protect her from the things that I've seen out there, you know, the things that's out there that ain't good for her. It's a crazy world we live in.
Your look reflects what's happening in your mind. You gotta have some swag to you.
Hip-hop is making a lot of noise. It should get some more spotlight.
I have no tattoos that I regret - I have had some that I have had changed according to how my life was.
I think the hip-hop purists are purists through and through. They're here to criticize all of us. That's just how it is. We as MC's criticize each other. That's the nature of hip-hop.
I love the art world, I love art galleries, I love what it means - I love art.
I wish the music business was a much easier thing, but you know what? Nothing easy is worth anything. So it is what it is. There comes a time when things can work out and everybody can be happy. And that's what it's all about in the end - everybody being happy and working it out.
I can't control what people think. They know who I am.
I don't go out unless I'm working. My quality time is when I'm doing nothing.
I don't have time for the news clippings. I got my own mission.
All fatherhood is very important because single mothers shouldn't have to raise sons or daughters; they need that help.
We're all Africans, everyone - black, white, yellow.
Hip-hop lasted and survived all these years that you have to give it credit. Even though it's not up to people's expectations anymore, its still here, and that's says a lot.
'Stillmatic' is the rebirth of 'Illmatic,' my first debut album to come out in 1994. 'Stillmatic' is me coming full circle in my career and with everything, and just bringing pure hip-hop back.
You know, rap is sort of like a form of talking, right? So it's like you can hear, you know, the slaves doing it. You can hear, like, you know, Africans and Jamaicans doing it just kind of as, like, a rhythmic, poetic conversation, you know, to a rhythm.
There was a side of me that knew I was gonna change the game, but I didn't know how many people would respect it.
I'm just little me, an American who wants to see his country do better.
'Life Is Good' represents the most beautiful, dramatic and heavy moments in my life.
When I say 'hip-hop is dead,' basically, America is dead. There is no political voice. Music is dead.
I'll always love rap, no matter what's going on.
No one's promised anything. You could have the biggest record on radio and sell no records.
I think hip-hop could help rebuild America, once hip-hoppers own hip-hop... We are our own politicians, our own government, we have something to say. We're warriors. Soldiers.
I'm not talking about Russia in my music. I've never been to Russia. I'm not talking about Africa, Switzerland, China. I'm talking about me being American and growing up in a crazy world and helping to reflect all different sides of life.
Anybody can be a rapper, but not anybody can be a classical artist.
I think the fact that I made enough noise in the world that I might be remembered is an amazing achievement. You can't ask for more than that.
I had a pretty public divorce. They're not easy - divorces - and it took me a long time to really get through.
When you're a teenager, you want to meet a lot of girls - you want to get the most girls. You don't know anything about respect; you don't know anything about being faithful and loyal to your girlfriend.
I want to sound like an instrument. I want my voice and my words to marry the beat. I go with the rhythm of it and the words start to come to my mind and those words could be based on things that's been on my mind for the past year, the past month, the past week, whatever; I write it.
Hip-hop is really standoffish. It's really competitive and it's really about who's number one all the time. Sometimes it gets out of hand.
Let's not forget, art can sell. You ain't gotta front all the time on your records.
I think if I heard someone else talking about their life, describing all the problems I've had, they'd look like they were through. Done. But there's something about me - I'm smiling. Those things are really not bad enough to put me in a slump. I'm smiling with the opportunity to wake up every morning.
The sound of the '90s, to me, is a combination of soul and street - it's a feeling.
I love PBS! I grew up on it. If I had to say which channels were good, I'd say, you got your PBS, your History Channel, your Discovery.
I like the way hip-hop is now. It's grown up enough so that it can get involved with politics if it feels like it.
To me, creatively challenging myself is my version of owning the Nets.
Hip-hop is bigger than the South; hip-hop is bigger than New York.